The Cambridge History of English and American Literature in 18 Volumes (190721).Volume XIV. The Victorian Age, Part Two.

III. Critical and Miscellaneous Prose.

§ 4. James Hannay.

On a lower plane stood James Hannay who had ended a naval, and begun a literary, career before he was twenty. It was not unnatural that his experience in the navy should suggest the possibility that he might follow in the steps of Marryat, and Singleton Fontenoy and a collection of short stories are based upon that experience. But the knowledge of a boy could furnish no such groundwork as Marryats long years of storm and battle. Hannay turned, rather, to criticism, and, in the essays contributed to The Quarterly Review, which were afterwards reprinted, as well as in the lectures entitled Satire and Satirists, he showed taste and judgment.